pied midden : issue no.38 : healing land wounds : dana o’driscoll

*Ground Bright warm tones (vulcan salute unintended but not unwelcome :). Photo by Tilke Elkins.*

ground bright behind-the-scenes

Ground Bright is a monthly pigment subscription that sends glassine packets of foraged pigment to subscribers all over the planet (currently 16 countries!). But where do all these pigments come from? What’s the mysterious process through which I, Tilke, receive these pigments and pass them on to you, dear subscribers?

When I say the pigments are “contributed,” that’s exactly what I mean. They’re given, as gifts, to Wild Pigment Project, by other artists like me — artists who have intimate relationships with land and reciprocal practices of learning, giving and growing through materials they work with to make art.

How do I find these amazing and generous souls? Sometimes, I get a feeling that a Ground Bright contribution might be a welcome journey for an artist who has caught my eye, and I’ll reach out and ask them if they’re interested — but this is the exception. Usually, artists find me. I’ll get an email or a DM on Instagram from someone who resonates with what’s going on with this project and has gotten a call (from the land, from a particular pigment, or just from inner listening) to offer to contribute pigment. That’s an exciting day for me, because it means stepping into a whole new web of relationships: a friendship with this new contributor, and interconnection with their place and their communities. It means hanging out with this new person to get to know them and their pigment, both through formulating the text that goes on those little Ground Bright recycled-paper cards, and in developing our interview or essay for this newsletter.

A box full of pigment is a huge, sparkly, generous gift that I feel incredibly honored and humbled and just purely delighted to receive. Delighted and amazed, every time. Ground Bright is the sole source of funding for Wild Pigment Project, because thus far, I’m too stubborn or too busy to apply for grant funding. Ground Bright pays me to do the background work that I do to keep the project running; researching, providing resources, offering scholarships, sharing the work of artists, writing, interviewing, and a ton of communication and basic digital grunt work. It also gives my partner Noelle Guetti, who packages up the pigment each month and lays all the little tags out to paint them on the biggest table we happen to be around (in multiple rounds!), a nice, rhythmic piece of side work to accompany her weaving and clothing design practice.

AND, significantly for us artists, it allows us to direct money to organizations we believe in. Because I don’t figure a personal salary into the Ground Bright equation, the 22% is — for a small, solo-run organization — a nice chunk of change: between $800 and $1000 per month, depending on how many subscribers there are that month. For the often small organizations that receive the donation, it can go a long way — as will the November donation, to the Long Tom Watershed Council, to support its Native youth internship program. As of this month, I’ve been able to direct more than 25K to orgs I feel passionate about. And of course, it’s not “me” making those donations — it’s we, it’s us, it’s you: the artists, the subscribers, the land. Whether you subscribe or not, dear reader, you fuel this project with your attention and enthusiasm.

The Ground Bright pigments are gifts of grace. I don’t — can’t — plan out very far into the future. The farthest out I get is three months, and even then, there’s no guarantee that the pigments will arrive when anyone plans them to. These are GIFTS, not something to rush or even expect. If the pigments don’t come, it’s because they’re not meant to. You subscribers might imagine that I have a year’s worth of pigments neatly tucked into an orderly store room, ready to be calmly dispensed each month at the appointed time. The process is considerably more thrilling than that. I rarely have more than one pigment in-house at a time, which means that there’s an electrifying wait for the next pigment to arrive (if! when!) and an ecstatic moment of joy when it does.

Does this all make you nervous, dear subscriber? Well, you shouldn’t be, for two reasons. One is the Ground Bright track record: in three and a half years, we’ve never missed a month, or even mailed out notably late to subscribers. The second is that if there’s no pigment, then there’s no Ground Bright — stay with me here to find out why that’s a comfort.

When I started down the Ground Bright road, I did so with the promise to myself that if the pigments stopped coming, it would signal the natural end of Ground Bright. Ground Bright is a unique community, a web of connection between subscribers and artists and land and land stewards. It’s not a commercial enterprise with an infinite expansion agenda. In fact, its limits can be spelled out quite simply, as a measurement of weight: five and a half pounds. That’s the maximum any contributor, and any land-source, might reasonably be expected to give, I decided early on. From one view, it’s a hell of a lot, considering that most of us solo practitioners work with very small quantities of dust. On the other hand, with global economic scales in mind, it’s a pretty discrete quantity of earth considering how much it travels, in all senses. It’s less than you’d need for a potted house plant.

Still, removing land from its place of origin is complex. As I’ve grown in this process, it’s become clear to me that pigments derived from the waste stream offer the highest positive equation, whether they’re rescued earths from construction sites or pigments made from what’s considered “trash.” I’ve come to think of these materials not as ‘waste,’ but as ‘disordered’: stuff that’s been moved from where it once was and not yet given a place that’s perceived (by humans and other beings) as beneficial. Like this month’s pigment, Tacoma Ochre, made from iron that leached out into watersheds and wiped out visibility for everyone who lives in them.

‘Pigments From the Waste Stream’ is the current running theme for Ground Bright. So far, a few glimmers of exciting offers have reached my ears: some orphaned soil samples from an artist partnered with a soil scientist in the south, redwood char from a forest fire, and the crushed remains of an empire colored with deep navy berry essence (hint: she found it on the ground!). As it stands right now, I’ll be preparing my own waste-stream pigment for you this month, unlike anything Ground Bright has seen yet.

I really don’t know how long we’ll be on this ride together, but don’t worry, when the cycle nears its completion, subscribers will be given a gentle and celebratory exit. No one will be charged for a pigment that never comes. I’ll cancel your subscription myself once your final pigment has shipped, be that in two months, two years, or Earth-only-knows-how-long. And then, we’ll have a giant Zoom party, with all 1,000+ people who have ever been subscribers invited, and we’ll wave our colors at each other and give gratitude to the earth and welcome the next level of love, connection and creative expression we can cook — no, mull! — up.

In the meantime, if you know of any artists in relationship with pigments made from glorious, abundant materials from the waste stream (orphaned soils! copper scraps made into pigment! dye extractions from florist trash heaps! lakes from exhausted dye baths!) who might be interested in doing tthe Ground Bright dance with me, please send them my way. It’ll make my month — and maybe, yours. :)

*Dana O’Driscoll mulls Tanoma Ochre. Photo courtesy of Dana O’Driscoll.*

rescued iron

Artist, herbalist and druid Dana O’Driscoll reached out to me in late August asking how she might go about contributing pigment to Ground Bright. She’d been a subscriber for six months, and wanted to share some of the beautiful iron oxide found in abundance in the reclamation ponds of the Evergreen Conservancy site where the iron-clouded water from abandoned coal mines was being cleaned. She said the pigment was in abundance and required very little processing to make a luxurious rich paint.

Instead of an interview, Dana put together a little photo essay which intermingles her own story about tending a landscape ravaged by racism and the extractive industry with the story of the December pigment (already shipped!), Tanoma Ochre. Here it is!

when rivers run red

Tanoma Ochre by Dana O’Driscoll

Growing up as a child in Western Pennsylvania, you lived everyday with what pollution looked like. “Sulfur Creek” was the local creek, yellow, stinking, and lifeless, polluted by multiple mines discharging Acid Mine Drainage. People in this region, where over 3000 miles of waterways are polluted in similar manners, endure a legacy of pollution left by coal mines and the larger steel mill industry from over a century ago. These are the places our families and ancestors worked, lived, and died. These places, regardless of whether we want them to, lodge in our own bones and blood. Most of our mines were already closed by the time the Mine Reclamation Act of 1978 was passed in the USA, requiring mines to prevent waterway pollution. Unfortunately, because they were already closed and polluting, the act did nothing to stop the pollution of so many rivers and streams. Invariably as an artist growing up in this region, and later, choosing to return to it, I’ve worked such experiences into my work.

*Sulphur Creek — iron from acid mine drainage pollution is a familiar site in Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of Dana O’Driscoll.*

Here is Sulphur Creek ( its literal name! ) that runs through small towns in Cambria County, PA, very close to where I grew up. Since this photo was taken, cleanup efforts have begun, grant supported. Cleanup of such a waterway can take decades, and it will be many years before the orange fully disappears.

Tanoma Ochre, this month’s pigment, comes from the Tanoma Wetland site, where two different mines discharge their AMD. This constructed wetland prevents the discharge from flowing into Two Lick Creek, and is supported by the Evergreen Conservancy, a community-led non-profit organization. Since the cleanup of this and one other site, the creek now is an excellent kayaking and fishing creek. All over Pennsylvania, we are seeing cleanup efforts like these taking place and we have freshwater mussels, otters, river snakes, and even freshwater turtles returning. The work has been slow, but it is critical and it is giving us all hope.

Here is an overview of the Tanoma wetland site, where the AMD remediation occurs. You can see the AMD coming in through two places in the first settling pool. This pool also offers the rich, orange-brown Tanoma ochre pigment that is being shared in December’s Ground Bright subscription. Below, you’ll see Cindy, who is the president of the Evergreen Conservancy that oversees the Tanoma site, who has fished for pigments and is laying them out to dry.

Here she dumps the pigments into a drying screen at the site, to dry in the sun, and then wait to be turned into something new.

We can see the pigment drying here with the beautiful, healing wetlands behind them: a chance for this pigment to be more than poison on the land—a chance for transformation to occur.

A lot of my own interest in pigments stems from these waste streams and my lifelong interaction with them. Growing up, I often played in these creeks, smearing pigment on rocks to create designs. I didn’t understand what I was seeing then, but I certainly do now. Working this waste pigment into my own art, as healing art, as art to help heal the land, I am able to bring that work of metaphysical healing into the forefront. Each piece of art that uses this waste that has been reclaimed is a powerful lesson in healing.

As an artist, I’ve learned how to work with the stories and pains of this landscape, transmuting them through art and words into healing. As a druid of almost 20 years, practicing nature spirituality, land healing, herbalism, and permaculture, I’ve also interwoven a spiritual practice that responds to these wounds and works towards balance and healing. All heal (Prunella Vulgaris), which comes from my Plant Spirit Oracle deck, includes the Tanoma Ochre in the browns of this piece, and was specifically chosen because of this plant’s healing. This plant’s many folk names speak to the power of this healing: heart of the earth, wound wort, heal all. Another piece from the Plant Spirit Oracle, the Earth card, uses the Tanoma Ochre extensively beneath the earth, to show love.

Another part of this is coming to terms with my own ancestral legacy as a white colonizer on these lands. This ancestral legacy that I was born into, of colonization, waste streams and coal mining, is not one I’m proud of. The Susquehannock people, who were the original inhabitants of the land where I live and where the Tanoma site rests, were nearly eradicated and driven from their lands by white colonizers; I know my ancestors were among those who committed these atrocities. These were the same ancestors that stripped Pennsylvania of 98% of its old growth forests, and that opened up seams of coal in the ground that still poison our waterways. When I think about this heavy legacy of so much pain, I do the best thing I can to honor the lost ancestors of the land and the billions of non-human lives lost, by working to tend this broken and damaged land, healing and witnessing, and, as we practice in the druid tradition, learning how to “become a better ancestor.”

*Image by Dana O’Driscoll. Photo courtesy of Dana O’Driscoll.*

Druidry is, in itself, a colonized indigenous religion that many of us are working to bring back to life after literally millennia. I sit in the position of both someone who has been colonized and someone who also is part of a larger colonizer culture. This dual perspective can be felt most strongly around colonized holidays, like Christmas, but also in visiting European churches that were literally replacing pagan shrines. I believe this perspective gives me some unique insights on these particular issues. We have a surprising number of indigenous people who have joined AODA (the Ancient Order of Druids In America), for example, and as the head of AODA, I work hard to make sure they are welcomed, supported, and that they have an honored place in our community.

A good deal of my own spiritual ancestral work has been making direct reparations to the land and the ancestors of the land on this particular issue. I chose to come back to PA to live in one of the *hardest* parts of the country due to this ongoing spiritual work. This is a place of deep land extraction—coal mines, fracking, mountaintop removal, AMD, coal burning power plants….we have it all, here, and there is almost no respect for or emphasis on conservation here. Extraction is tied to livelihood. It is extremely conservative (Trump country, with all that entails). This area has one of the largest concentrations of hate groups in the USA. We have a local Proud Boys chapter that meets at a Moose lodge literally 3 miles from my house, and high numbers of KKK, Oath Keepers, etc. So anyone who is different—like me—stays hidden. I’ve been here seven years and this work is brutal, isolating, and very difficult. I live here do to this deep reparation work on behalf of my ancestors. I live here because right now, this land desperately needs people to help heal, acknowledge, and tend. I believe it is necessary to make reparations any way I can—to both current indigenous peoples, and to the ancestors of this land, and I do that by being a land healer and tender. I actually have a book on land healing coming out in 2024 on these exact practices, which are ongoing.

I do this work as both an artist and a druid. I’ve started to write books to get the message out, in addition to my Druid’s Garden blog, where I’ve been writing on these topics for over 12 years. These included my first book Sacred Actions: Living the Wheel of the Year through Earth-Centered Sustainable Practices (Red Feather, 2021) and through my upcoming land healing book Healing Hands: Physical and Ritual Approaches to Healing the Earth (Red Feather, 2024). These works try to help us transition to more sustainable, regenerative living that does not depend on the extraction of fossil fuel, and that helps us help heal the damage humans have done. The potential cover of that book is above, with, of course, the Tanoma Ochre in the design.

Another thread of this weaving has been to create open-access foraging ethicsand graphics, available to anyone who teaches or wants to learn to forage. I also teach wild food foraging classes in my local ecosystem, with these ethics, in the hopes that I can share a love of place and land that will grow and spread.

Most of my understanding of this comes from Lillian Wolf, my Anishinaabe teacher, plus my practices in permaculture and using permaculture’s ethical system in my life, my direct life experiences as a druid and land healer, and teachings that come from the Allegheny Mountains. Lilian Wolf has taught me a great deal about reciprocation, ethics, and gratitude, which has helped push my thinking much further in these directions and see beyond a colonial/settler mindset, and at this point, these have been deeply woven into my own practices. Her teachings are not yet public, although she has one piece on working with trees published in one of AODA’s journals.

More recently, I have been heavily influenced by Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk, where he recognizes the primary role of humans is to be in a caretaking relationship with the land. This is a role I take very seriously and consider it the most important work I do.

But somehow, these things never feel like enough. I look across this damaged landscape, and I can see the smoke from the coal plants in the distance. I drive and see the evidence of mountaintop removal, the recent deforestation, and the gas fracking wells that litter our otherwise beautiful landscape. I know that many rural families’ livelihoods depend on these extractive activities, which makes it harder to fight them, especially when there is nothing else to take their place for employment. Those of us who are working to support the land and conserve our environment here often feel overwhelmed with the work that there is left to do…but every year, there are more people joining and waking up and realizing that meaningful change needs to happen. And that gives me hope. Maybe we can become good ancestors after all.

I am grateful for this opportunity to share Tanoma Ochre with you and share also about the legacy—and change—that so many of us are fighting for here in Western Pennsylvania. May we all walk the path of becoming good ancestors, living in honor of those who came before us.

~ Dana O’Driscoll, December 2022

merry and happy

Thank you, Dana, for inspiring us with the important work that you do!

That’s all from me — keeping this short and sweet, since I broke my promise and chattered away as usual in the intro — largely thanks to those of you who (perhaps foolishly!) said that length doesn’t bother you (your encouragements really warmed my heart, thank you, friends…!). For those on the other side, who wouldn’t mind a little break from so much writing, I’m planning a photo piece for January. :)

I always love to hear from you! I’m at info@wildpigmentproject.org, or just hit ‘reply’ to this to drop me a line. Like this newsletter? Consider sharing it with a friend by sending them this link.

Stay In the Light,

<3 Tilke

newsletter archive

pied midden : issue no.38 : healing land wounds : dana o’driscoll